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KFWD
Not to be confused with the real life SonLife-affiliated television station that shares the same callsign and coverage area. KFWD is an ABS-affiliated television station serving the Fort-Worth/Dallas Metroplex, Texas. History Telemundo The station first signed on the air on September 1, 1988; it first operated as the Dallas-Fort Worth market's original affiliate of the Spanish language network Telemundo. The KFWD call letters were previously used by a local radio station on 102.1 FM (now KDGE). For much of its history with the network, KFWD signed off the air during the overnight hours each night; as a result, the station did not carry the entire Telemundo network schedule, whose overnight lineup (as is the case to this day) consisted of infomercials produced and dubbed in Spanish as well as feature films from countries with a predominant population of Spanish speakers such as Mexico. The station began broadcasting 24 hours a day in late 2000. Independent KFWD lost its affiliation with Telemundo when NBC, which had recently acquired the network, bought independent station KXTX-TV (channel 39) from the Christian Broadcasting Network in 2001. During KFWD's final month as a Telemundo affiliate, the station aired English language infomercials during the morning and overnight hours. On January 1, 2002, KFWD became an English language general entertainment independent station. It acquired syndicated programs displaced by both KXTX and KSTR-TV (channel 49) when both stations affiliated with Spanish language networks on that date – KXTX having joined Telemundo, while KSTR joined TeleFutura (including programs such as Real TV and Access Hollywood). Belo Corporation began managing the station in 2006, providing advertising sales assistance, certain technical services and facilities to support the operations of KFWD; Belo's flagship ABC affiliate WFAA (channel 8) also supplied the station with repurposed editions of its newscasts (consisting of simulcasts of its Monday-Saturday 6:00 p.m., Sunday-Friday 10:00 p.m. and Sunday 5:30 p.m. newscasts) and other programs seen on that station (such as The Dr. Oz Show). On October 17, 2011, KFWD changed its programming format, placing a strong emphasis on classic television series. MundoFox/Max On June 11, 2012, HIC Broadcast, Inc. announced that KFWD would revert to a Spanish language format as a charter affiliate of MundoFox (a joint venture between Fox International Channels and RCN Television); it switched to the network when MundoFox "soft launched" on select affiliates on August 1, 2012 at 6 a.m. local time (the network's formal launch date was on August 13). As a result, Belo terminated its management agreement with HIC Broadcast, Inc. to operate KFWD. On June 27, 2015, MundoFox was rebranded as MundoMax after 21st Century Fox sold its stake in the network to RCN, giving RCN full ownership. The full name change and logo overhaul occurred August 13, which coincided with the network's third anniversary. ABS America On October 26, 2015, HIC filed an application to sell KFWD to NRJ TV DFW License Co, LLC, a subsidiary of NRJ Holdings LLC. Sale was approved by the FCC on December 15, 2015 and completed on January 8, 2016. Starting September 1, 2016, KFWD was set to switch to being an affiliate of the Sonlife Broadcasting Network, however, the Japanese "big six" broadcaster Kabushiki Gaisha ABS was given FCC permission to move KFWD to virtual channel 16. NRJ TV DFW would separate itself from NRJ Holdings and merge with the ABS America network - its staff were promised that they would keep their existing positions within the station. ABS instantly terminated the conversion to a Christian network, and announced that KFWD would become a general entertainment O&O of the brand-new ABS America network. Its main offices were re-declared as the Kabushiki Gaisha ABS Southwest Annexe in Irving, TX (a building shared with other ABS annexes). Initially set to switch on September 1, MundoMax 52 shut down, switched, and signed-on as ABS 16 on the 27th of August 2016, over three months before MundoMax ceased operations. KFWD was the first to use ABS America's own unique news graphics package, the designer of which took cues from NBC's "Look L" and Sinclair's packages in areas. KFWD is designing its own news graphics package, along with Kabushiki Gaisha ABS' main offices in Shinjuku, but KFWD is set to use the Look L/Sinclair hybrid news graphics package for the foreseeable future. Programming KFWD airs a selection of general entertainment programmes from other English-speaking countries, translated Japanese and Korean programmes, a daily newscast at 6pm, and a morning block of programmes for children. Japanese imports KFWD is notable for being one of the only television stations in America to include a significant amount of Japanese-language content on its schedule, with an average of 1 hour:30 comprised of Japanese content. ABS has been well-known for making this content accessible to foreigners via its ABS International satellite channel for many years prior to its entering the North American terrestrial market; all Japanese programmes are readily available with English closed captions. Doraemon, ABS' popular animated family comedy series, airs weekly on a Saturday at 6:30pm. Other Japanese animes are shown on a sporadic basis. Live-action Japanese shows are not as common as they are on ABS' main Japanese domestic network, as ABS 16 imports a large amount of such programming from Australia and the UK. Live music SBS' popular live performance show, The Music Trend, is shown on a weekly basis via ABS 16, along with KBS' Music Bank, TV Asahi's Music Station and Arirang's Simply K-Pop. These programmes are delayed by 48 hours to allow for English subtitles to be created for broadcast in the US, with the exception of Simply K-Pop, which is already produced mainly for English-speaking audiences, and Music Station, which requires up to 72 hours to be translated by a separate Japanese-speaking translation team. News Following with the tradition set in Japan by ABS N6, ABS 16 runs a daily newscast at 6pm every day, in addition to the rolling news channel ABS N24 on subchannel 16.2. International bulletins from Al Jazeera and Sky News International are also shown periodically, mainly during overnight hours. Category:Dallas Category:Fort Worth Category:Aso Broadcasting System Category:Channel 16 Category:Texas Category:Television channels and stations established in 1988 Category:Television channels and stations established in 2016 Category:Former Telemundo affiliates Category:Former MundoFox affiliates Category:Former MundoMax affiliates Category:Former independent stations Category:Former Independent stations Category:ABS America Category:ABS America affiliates